So much debate evolves around the importance of keywords and content in terms of ranking a website.This debate is similar to the longstanding debate of what came first the chicken or the egg?

There are enough valid points to add credence to both sides.Case in point; if you create well written content,meaning content that is informative, well written and even pleasant to look at decorated with beautiful pictures what is to guarantee that anyone will read your work? All of the energy that is put into creating content you would want more than a few people reading.

On the other hand, if you create content solely based upon keywords meaning that the content may lack in interest or may lack in terms of design .But you use keywords that will yield a high return in the search engines, who is to say that more people will return to read what you wrote or have on your website.

After some research and examining the pros and cons of both point of views it stand to reason that for content to be effective a combination of both good content and keywords are a necessity.

By creating content that is readable, and interesting, and adding some freebies in the mix you know that your visitors will be interested in something. The best analogy for this is similar to inviting people over for a gathering. You plan for your guests to be comfortable that includes having something to drink and something to eat. The amount of food, and the exact drinks such as non-alcoholic or alcoholic will be determined by the actual guests, and the time of the gathering. Same thing with your content. Your content in essence is the things you give to others to make theme comfortable.

Continuing with the same analogy, inviting your guests after you have made a list of whom you will invite is similar to the keywords you use.You can invite your guests by word of mouth, or by sending invitations through regular mail or snail mail. The point is an invitation is extended to those you would like to come. The keywords are what is inviting the guests to the gathering or website.

So, the next time you are considering if you should focus on keywords or content, why not do both. After all (continuing with the “get together” analogy)you want to have an gathering that is the talk of the town as opposed to an epic fail.

Tools for keyword selection:

1.Googles keyword tool free tool, depending on the niche, you may have to redefine searches2.Market Samurai – I still have not used this tool, however, I’ve read a lot of positive reviews for it. Nonetheless this product seems to make the keyword selection process go a lot faster.3.SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool – this tool is part of a group of online tools.A basic or free account is required to use the tool. There are other plans available as well.The upgraded version offers more options for your keyword search especially if it is a niche that is a bit obscure.4.Add Me – is another tool that yields a decent search. You may have to tweak your keywords a bit5.Keyword Optimizer Pro Software– a best choice, free to use.

Do you have some point of view that you would like to add? Please post your comments below

A marketing a campaign is designed with the knowledge that you need to know how to improve trust in a relationship by showing people that you have integrity and that your product or service will be what they want to or even imagine it to be.

It is common knowledge that all people expect to be “over sold” on anything. Whether it is a relationship, effectiveness of a product and the abilities of a service. There are two ways of handling this.

The first way is to undersell your service or product and over deliver. The second point of view for your marketing campaign is to tell the truth and meet that truth or surpass it.

Creating an environment of truth for your prospects is best demonstrated when a sign up form states “if you purchase and item from me, I will hold your information valuable and keep it safe.” This particular phrase is also denoted as “we will never rent sell your information” on subscription forms as well.

Other elements of trust that can be utilized to improve your relationship with prospects is use websites that can validate who you are, join websites that believe and promote ethical web business.

While you are creating content for your website, blogs, and even sales pages think of more ways of how to improve trust in a relationship.what things can you do to reassure your prospects, and that you can create an environment of trust. How can you express your sincerity when you add the following words “I hold your information valuable and I will never rent or sell your information.”

Malka Maxwell is giving free seo tips to busy business owners through her website newsletter,blog.

When creating a local search you will need to be familiar with what search terms are being utilized to find your business. If you have a website already this part is already complete. Use the keywords or their synonyms to tag your local listings.

Local listings can best be described as “your business name + your city”. And “your keywords + you city”. So, for instance if you are a ice cream shop located in Queens New York you would place your business in websites that have local listings for your city, in this case “Queens”.

The most common places to list your business is obviously in Google maps/Google Places. The process of getting into Google Places can be a bit complicated but once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier. Their process requires a telephone validation process and or a mail validation process which can take up to six weeks. This process is applicable to physical locations (usually).

Congratulate yourself, you are on the map, now move on to other places.

A great way to get your local listing high in the search engine rankings is to use interactive websites. These websites allow customers to leave reviews of your product and or service.

The more often your customers leave reviews, the more fresh you will be in the search engines (in addition to the other methods that are being used to move you up in the search).

Remember, the real underlying goal for marketing on line in the search engines is to create a base for your brand to grow on.

That is accomplished by feeding news, new articles,new reviews, new tweets etc to the search engines WITHOUT spamming them. The more content or information that is relevant to your particular website that is “out there” the more the human and machine eyes (other wise known a search engines) will say you are the top authority which gets translated as top ranking in search engines.

(c) Malka Maxwell
Malka Maxwell is an author an publisher. Ms Maxwell’s SEOConsultancy offers service to New York, tri-state area and internationally. Read about SEO techniques,or hire her to do it for you

A few years ago, when I wrote and published my book I had known that I needed traffic to get the information regarding my ebook out to the masses. What is called web2.0 or user generated content sites were just starting to crop up, places such as Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo Answers and the like became the places to go.

By using those sites and other techniques it was very easy to generate twenty five pages of relevant information regarding me and my brand. Relevant information to me is anything that allows anyone doing research about what I think, and how I do business to be able to see blog posts, articles, forums and even charity events, and political events that I felt were near and dear to my heart.

Since then, these type of sites have increased by almost no exaggeration, one hundred fold! You have tons of coupon companies, more ways to access ebooks, new device creations to make our computers and the handy information portable and more.

Over the last year or so, of doing search engine marketing as a service to others I have encountered many business owners who felt that word of mouth was good enough for them, and that even though they have a website and a Facebook page, their web designers told them that the marketing element is of no value. My opinion is this, I respect that belief however, I also believe to stay in the fore front of all of this madness you have to be able to get new and constant traffic.

As a service I actually use the same basic blueprint I used years ago (obviously with some more current website and directory lists) to continue to generate that free traffic.

The top 4 free traffic sources are

1. Blogs. Using blogs, and telling people about what you know is one of the free traffic sources. Once you put an RSS feed, and join either a ring of blogs, or advertise you actual posts, you will get traffic. Using a blog can generate a lot of traffic. But remember the goal of traffic is not only to have people read what you say, but also to help you make money. That is done by purchasing from your store, purchasing your service, joining your affiliate program or clicking on links within the blog.2. Good use of Bio Box in articles and blog posts. When you read articles in print newspapers and magazines as well as the online articles and blog posts, most authors put information at the bottom of the article. This information at the bottom of the article is an author bio. By using the bio (short for biography) box to let the reader know of your website, blog, newsletter or anything of interest that you have to offer.3. Article use. Articles are a great way to get traffic because for the most part, they stay online for what seems to be forever. This makes searching for the topic of what you have written come up in a search. In addition you are able to brand yourself as an expert, and the final advantage of using articles is that the article directories have high PR (page ranking) having those links back at you will help traffic and the quality of referring traffic to your website.4. Use high traffic blogs. You can contribute to the content on a high traffic blog by commenting and linking back to your own website and or blog.

Getting traffic to your website is a physically challenging but essential thing to do. Traffic is key just like in a physical store or office. If no one is stopping by, then a new plan has to be put into place to get prospects and customers into your business.

Malka Maxwell is an author, and writer creating a path for local business to learn and use SEO.

Search engine marketing or optimization is a buzz word that has taken on a life of its own. Evey one seems to be offering these services. What the service should cost, is a topic for another time.

The purpose of search engine optimization is to make sure that your website, is an ever changing website in terms of content and information, that it will be easily found when someone is looking for the services or product that you sell.

Millions of web pages have been created and just like a physical library or a physical yellow pages they need to be categorized so that a search can be narrowed down. Search engine optimization does that . You choose keywords, or search terms that will make your service or product easily found. Due to the large amount of repeat service and same or similar product sales each place needs a way to get their message out. When your message is out their, that is essentially your traffic. The more traffic you get, the more exposure your product or service gets, which then translates into sales.

The key element that determines how important your website is and distinguishes it from everyone else is how much information is floating around the internet regarding your product or service. The more information, the faster your product or service becomes accessible to someone looking for the product. That is what is called page rank. Usually the higher the rank, the faster you will be found. Like many rules, there are of course exceptions. So, even if you have a service for example that doesn’t change much and you have a website that really doesn’t need to change often, by doing things outside of the actual website, you are able to create more content, thus making your website appear to constantly change and help your page ranking.

The top 5 tips to increase website traffic and ranking are

1.View your website with the same seriousness you would for a physical store. You can do that by viewing your website as a constantly evolving sales tool, as opposed to a brochure that is printed once and never used again (or in web language a static brochure)

2. Know the main design requirements. When designing your websites and blogs think research and use the keywords and or phrase combinations to attract your target customers. Place your keywords (including your primary and secondary keywords) in the right fields and use those same words within your web pages. Those fields are more specifically Headers, META tags, Title, photo ALT text, primary and secondary keywords and more. Primary and secondary keywords should start within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document. You can also use your primary keywords as your domain name.

3. Keep your design simple. If you sell a service exclusively on the internet, it may help to visualize yourself in a physical store or office. Imagine a customer walks in and proceeds to do the business at hand such as purchasing an item or looking something up, or just speaking with an office member. With all of these elements in mind, if you were planning a physical office these are just a few of the issues you are considering. On line, the same thing will apply, but in a more general sense. Create a website that customers can navigate easily (or in a physical store, it would translate as walk down the aisles easily). Navigation will be between the various web pages, so that a customer can find what they want and purchase the product and or service

4.Make the experience memorable. Hiring help to do website, booklets and more can be pricey. Using the analogy of a physical store or office, create things you would give or do in the physical world. Demonstrate your knowledge of your product or service by writing articles and submitting them to the various databases. Use simple payment structures, and shipping options again, to make a memorable experience.

5. Track your progress. Using a physical office or store analogy you would keep track of the stock, and the repairs that may be needed, advertisement, and computer functioning etc to make your business run smoothly. For your website, that translates as using tools to track what is going on with your business. Tracking is good whether you are making no money or some money. You can do that by becoming knowledgeable of trends in search algorithms, use tracking tools, make tweaks to your actual website to keep your search engine ranking high and more.

Doing the administrative work for running a business is often the most time consuming part of it all. Doing the administrative work can be done smarter just by putting the needs in perspective. Once you do that, create your goals, and set out to achieve them. Page ranking is a slow and monthly process, but when done correctly can have a long lasting effect.

Malka Maxwell is an author,writer actively working with Business Owners to improve their knowledge of SEO.